Antivillain
by Bialy
Summary: Mello’s not a murderer and he never will be, Halle decides. He’s a kid in over his head, and that might be more dangerous than anything else. MelloxHalle
1. Coffee

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, Mello, Halle, or a kettle. I have biscuits, though. They're Jaffa Cakes. Quote is, predictably, Wilde.

Note: Dear Lord it's been ages since I updated anything. And now you get this shoddy one shot. It's a rewrite of the one my computer deleted just before I finished it. I don't think it's as good but I'm quite happy with it and I feel like I owe you guys SOME kind of update. It was originally meant to be an In Passing chapter but ran on far too long. Thinking of turning into into a three-shot Mello/Halle, interested?

But I have my LNAT exam tomorrow and I'm freaking out so wrote this to try to calm myself down. Hope you enjoy it. I'm getting addicted to the present tense now. And to Mello pairings, this being my third. Next, it's onto Mello/Near! No seriously though, I write a hell of a lot of Mello. He needs his own standalone fic. Like Deus Ex and Pseudo-Heroic. Next on my to-do list after other updates!

x

**Antivillain**

_You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit._

The first time Halle meets Mello, he does not carry a gun.

He is still young. Mello is always, has always, and will always be young, because those that die at twenty one remain that way forever, frozen in the footnotes of history. But with him, the memories only seem to get bolder, more vivid and pronounced with every year, like time is working backwards and seeping colour into a monochrome photograph. Halle, though, does not remember him as he was in this first meeting, though she can think back on it. Though Mello lives and dies young, when she first meets him, he is unscarred, little more than a boy, sprawled in an arm chair with his legs splayed and black leather clinging to him like sweat.

He is nineteen, she thinks, perhaps twenty. She tries to calculate it from the figures Near casually tossed about in conversation, but her mind is taken up by strategic possibilities and she's never taken the time to think it out before.

It is the day after the deaths of the SPK members, and that thought forces its way to the forefront of her mind when she opens her door to find him there: the person in front of her is a killer. Emotion courses through her - anger, fear, frustration at being caught out, horror at the realisation that she must have left a trail somewhere for him to follow her here. She swallows it down because emotion will do her no good here. She needs a calm, clear head, and her gun.

He sees her edging for it and shakes his head. She shuts the door quietly behind her. Mello - and she's knows it's him, she's seen the photograph and here there's the same straw hair, the same cool eyes - nods, leans back in the chair. She wonders that his outfit hasn't ripped, it's so tight and he's so loose, seeming to sink into the armchair as if he's sat in it his whole life.

She doesn't think he looks nineteen, or twenty, or whatever he is. His eyes are sharp but they haven't been hardened by age, and his outfit is just a little _too_ sinister, his posture just a little _too_ casual.

Halle is still afraid, though. She keeps reminding herself that this boy-man in her apartment is a murderer, that he won't hesitate to kill her if she makes a sudden move. But Mello doesn't _feel_ like a murderer to her. She's been around them - God knows, she's been around that type - and they reek of the same thing; coldness, hatred, anger. Mello, though…Mello seems a little uncertain. Like he doesn't _want_ to be here, doing this, but has to be.

They have said nothing. The apartment is very quiet - Mello, lounging in the chair, and Halle, standing by the door, eyes fixed on each other in a standoff to see who'll break first.

"Because I need you," Mello says suddenly, breaking the silence. It's not a loss, though, because Halle is so confused by his cryptic comment that _she_ is the one put onto the back foot.

He can sense her confusion. His eyes play over her face, taking in the feelings of trepidation and uncertainty he finds there. She isn't sure if he enjoys it or not. The answer is the difference between a killer and a boy stuck in a world he was never meant to find.

"It's an answer to your question," Mello continues, sounding bored, like he doesn't want to have to explain it. "You've been wondering why you're not dead. You know damn well your name is out there to be found for someone looking hard enough, and you know damn well that I _was_ looking hard enough. So the answer is: because I need you. Satisfactory, Ms Bullook?"

She almost flinches at the sound of her name. In the way the world has found itself, it's wielded like a weapon, not a greeting, and he says it calmly, as if he's asking if this is the right colour paint for her walls. Halle's stomach clenches though, because it's the proof she needed to prove she was utterly helpless.

He knows it. Mello is a genius, after all, according to tests and books. He plays with the edge of one black glove, the zip of his vest pulled down just a little too low.

"You're going to go along with it, one way or another. I need information on what Near's doing. SPK leads. Suspects, plans, the lot. And you'll give it to me." Mello fixes her with a look that says 'or else', and reaches a hand into his vest. He pulls out a slim black notebook. Halle doesn't know how anything fit in clothes that tight, but that thought doesn't register until much later, when he's gone and she's alone with the darkness and her guilt.

Mello fans the Death Note open, laying it on the arm of the chair. His eyes cast around for a pen, and he scoops up the ballpoint lying on the coffee table next to him. In the perfect Bond villain, the move would have been fluid, choreographed; in him, it's jerky and abrupt. Halle is still not calm, but the motion brings reality back to the situation, stops it morphing into something it's not.

"Halle Bullook," he says, poising the pen above the page. "I can write it quicker than you can shoot me." His voice is quiet and low and Halle would hazard a guess that he's almost going for seductive, and the notion is so absurd that it _has_ to cross her mind.

"If I write," Mello continues, in the same voice, eyes locked on hers, "that Halle Bullook sends information about the SPK to a certain address for twenty three days, and then dies of a heart attack, that is _precisely_ what will happen. But I think it's best for both of us if you just go along with it. After all…I'd much prefer to have use of you for more than just twenty three days.

Halle weighs up the options. This case will probably be the death of her, so she should at least go down fighting. But…but if she was in charge (and she can't help but suppress a slight shudder at the idea of this strange boy having complete control over her) then she could censor the information she was giving him, omit things, keep Near that little bit ahead…

"I will co-operate," she says, feeling an irrational surge of pride that her voice doesn't crack from lack of use and lack of certainty.

A smirk plays its way over Mello's face. "I thought you might."

He doesn't move. He knew all along the reasons she'd agree, Halle thinks. A little jolt runs up her spine as cobalt eyes rest on hers - he _knew_ she wanted to be in control. That's why he was sure she'd bite. That's why he came to her.

Mello sags into the chair. Any more relaxed, she decides, and his bones would part ways. The deal has been struck, the alliance forged, and still he's sprawling in the chair, eyes travelling over her, taking in curves and tautness, slender legs and arched brows. When the day's work of threats and blackmail is done, Mello is just like any other teenage boy - his gaze lingers too long on her breasts, strays once too many times over her mouth.

"Then it appears that, for the time being, we have found ourselves on something of the same side." Halle speaks archly, calmly, impassively. Where his gaze is full of heat she makes sure to fill hers with ice, sweeping it over him as if that will stop the tension and prickles of lust rising in him.

"It appears so," Mello replies.

Halle steps forward. Her hands move to her waist, landing on her holster. The effect on Mello is immediate. He snaps up, looseness evaporating and muscles tightening, fast as a cobra and sleek as a cat and just that little bit clumsy, like the dog that's been lying on its paws too long and has forgotten how to use them.

Mello's not a murderer and he never will be, she decides. He's a kid in over his head, and that might be more dangerous than anything else.

"What are you doing?" he barks, and she shifts her jacket back so he can see her unbuckling it, laying it over the back of the chair she's standing next to. Unflappable, she tells herself. Composed. Be composed.

Then, "Where are you going?" Same tone, authoritative, commanding, and complete unsure of itself, as she keeps walking, in slow, measured paces.

She half-turns. "It has been a long day. I'm thirsty. I'm getting coffee. You're welcome to join me. Coffee, tea…a juice box?"

Mello snarls and jerks the hand holding the pen, but they both know the threat is hollow. It feels good being back in control, even if it's just by making sarcastic little comments. Ultimately it gets her nowhere, but she's siphoning off her frustration at her own impotence into him, his calmness seeping into her.

The kitchen is cool and empty She boils water, pulls down a mug, spoons instant coffee granules into it. There's a half eaten packet of biscuits on the surface next to her, and she's sure they were closed before she left that morning. Mello was waiting a while, it seems.

Afterwards she decides it was probably revenge more than anything else, revenge for the sarcasm and refusal to crumble before him. The kettle clicks off, and she's reaching a hand forward to grasp it when she feels him behind her. He is perhaps a couple of inches shorter than her, and his breath is warm against the nape of her neck. She feels his fingers play along her spine, trailing down to the small of her back, where he spreads his palm against her. His other arm reaches forward - close, _too close_ to hers - and his fingers close around hers, picking up the kettle, pouring the water slowly. The kettle clicks back into place -

- and the only noises are breathing (Halle's is harsher than she'd like it to be, Mello's is soft and quiet), and the mutinous bubble of the cooling water in the kettle.

"I'll be seeing you soon," Mello says, voice low, into her ear. His lips almost touch her skin. Halle doesn't reply.

She stands where she is until long after the door has clicked shut behind him, long after her body has grown cold again in the places he touched. By the time she jolts back to reality, her coffee has gone cold and the water in the kettle has mostly evaporated off. Her throat is like sandpaper so she drinks the stuff anyway, bitter and tepid. She doesn't notice.

Halle holds onto the counter and takes a few steadying breaths. Her apartment still smells vaguely of leather. She shakes her head, pushes her hair back.

This case'll be the death of her, she's sure of it. It's going to be a hell of a ride, though.


	2. Eggs

Disclaimer: ...uh, nope, still don't own it. And my Jaffa Cakes are now gone. Onligatory quote line is Shel Silverstein and has little relevance to this chapter unless you're thinking the same way I do or know the poem. Even then, it's pretty out there.

Note: Ack, sorry this chapter's a little short. I wanted it to be the bridge between "I OWN YOU NOW" to "LET ME SLEEP ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR BATHROOM MY HIDEOUT WENT KABOOM". I don't think I did a very good job. I wanted to show Halle not just rolling over and putting him on the back foot, and Mello respecting that and coming to hang out with her a bit. In an agressive way, because that's just what Mello does. DN13 tells me he hasn't met up with Matt yet, and his appearance will be explained in the next chapter. Which will be the last one and probably stupidly long in comparison to this. Anyway, enjoy.

Also the real summary for this story is pretty much: Halle does things in her kitchen while Mello bothers her. _It's so sad but it's true_.

x

_if you are a dreamer, come in_

_-_

When Mello appears in her apartment for a second time, she is already inside. She has taken a shower, and now, with a towel wound round her hair and a robe tied round her waist, she is fixing a late-night sandwich. Snacking after midnight is something Halle Lidner never thought she would stoop to, but the Kira case is making her redefine her boundaries, even in trivial, silly little things like this.

"Ooh, looks good. Make me one?"

It's a taunt, a tease, and it makes Halle freeze because _someone is in her apartment_, but she knows that voice.

"Mello. Don't you knock?" She pulls two more slices of break out of the bag and starts to butter them.

She can almost feel him shrug, even though he is behind her. She hates this - leaving her back exposed to him - but she knows that it's the best thing to do. Show no fear, give him ample opportunity to attack and prove that you don't care, that he's not a threat, even if you heart is trembling in your shoes.

"Much more fun this way. Your neighbour saw me. I told him I was your boyfriend. So he thinks you have a toyboy now."

Halle's stomach contracts a little, and she thinks it's in anger. "You're here to blackmail me, remember? Leave other people out of this."

"Hey, I didn't go knocking on his door." Mello sounds petulant, and she imagines him crossing his arms. "It's hardly my fault he came out at _exactly_ the same time I was coming into your apartment."

"How did you even get in, anyway?"

"Trade secrets."

Of course. Halle peels some more ham out of the packet, lays it onto the second sandwich.

"Your information is over there." She tips her head towards the microwave. On top of it, a brown paper envelope is lying, containing six sheets filled with her neat script. "I couldn't type it because it would leave a trace and Near would find out. I assumed you'd rather he didn't, because then he'd fire me and you'd have no information."

Footsteps, rustling of paper. Halle doesn't turn around. She adds cheese and chutney to the sandwich, presses it together.

"Hm. Near doesn't seem to be doing much."

Halle reaches up to a cupboard above her head and extracts a plate. It's blue, with a green rim, too big for one sandwich. She tries again. "He isn't. Mainly because of you. Partly because of the Japanese taskforce."

"The taskforce?" More footsteps, and now Mello is behind her. "What have they got to do with anything? I thought they were useless."

"Yes, they are," Halle replies, finding the plate she wants. "For the most part. The L replacement, Near wants to know more about him. He's sure he's making a move soon. He's waiting on that."

Mello brandishes the papers in front of her face. His hand is the only part of him she sees. "And why isn't that in here?"

She turns, holding out the plate with the sandwich on it. "It is," she says coldly. "I assumed you'd learnt to read, so I didn't provide an illustrated contents page."

Mello slaps the sandwich out of her hand. The plate crashes against the floor, and crack neatly in two, chutney sprayed out across the floor like the tail of a comet.

Halle surveys the mess. "I'm not making you another one."

Mello snarls.

She looks at him properly. He looks more tired than the last time (first time) she saw him. Like he hasn't been getting much sleep. Then again, neither have they - she's never, ever seen Near sleep and only Gevanni, who has an almost child-like ability to fall asleep wherever he is, has been getting the regulation eight hours.

"You should rest," she says, and it irritates her that her voice comes out more tender than she had intended.

"What's it to you?" he snaps.

"The more irritable you are, the more likely you are to kill me on a whim," she explains. It has to seem professional. It has to - because it is, isn't it? It's not that she's worried about this kid who holds her life in his hands. Even if he doesn't even look twenty and is driving himself to his death.

He snorts. "Fine. But you try sleeping in a mafia hideout." He jabs a finger at her. "I guarantee you you'd wake up pregnant."

Halle raises her eyebrows. "I'm a very light sleeper."

"And sleeping drug work quickly. Believe me, I know."

For a moment, she almost queries the story behind that statement. Then she catches herself, and smiles thinly. "You can sleep on the couch if you want."

Mello's mouth is already open in an automatic response when he realises what she's said. "I - what?" He looks confused. Halle is pleased that she's finally been able to repay the favour.

"Sleep. My couch. Provided you promise I won't wake up pregnant." It's just a joke but the vague hint of colour that stains Mello's cheeks amuses her. "You need the rest. You're no use to anyone, least of all me, if you drop from exhaustion."

"Shut up. I'm not going to be 'of use' to _you_ at all - you're useful to me!"

Halle almost laughs at how childish his comment sounds. "I find it very useful to not be dead, and that is sort of thanks to you. So, am I making up the couch or going to bed?"

Mello doesn't reply. Halle wraps her arms around herself, wishing she'd changed out of the thin robe before making her now-forgotten sandwich.

"Well?"

A mumble in reply.

She's not going to force him to embarrass himself anymore.

"Right then. It'll be ready in about ten minutes."

-

Every time Mello visits, he arrives unannounced. He trashes her apartment a little when she makes comments insulting his masculinity, grabs the papers and says he's leaving, and then hangs around. He sleeps on the couch, and wakes up before her, and disappears before he has to say thank you or act like he didn't just accept alms from the woman he's extorting.

So when Halle comes into her living room, hair a mess and pyjama bottoms trailing a little on the floor (looking everything like a soft, innocent teenager and nothing like the professional, hard-assed woman she's styled herself to be) she is taken aback to see him, still lying on the couch, one arm drooped over the side.

She thinks about waking him, and then makes him eggs instead.

It's probably the smell that brings him round. Halle hears a dull groan, followed by the unmistakeable sound of someone rolling onto a floor they didn't remember was there. Mello swears, and a few seconds later, appears in the kitchen, bleary eyed and furious.

Halle, by comparison, is feeling serenely calm. A crazed mafia man has been sleeping on her sofa and is now glaring at her across her kitchen, but all she can do is smile absently at the humour of it all and ask him how he likes his eggs.

Mello doesn't see the funny side He squares up to her, asks her what she's doing. She replies, very slowly, that she's making eggs, and how does he like them so he doesn't trash another plate. Mello still appears to be more asleep than awake, and so his response is little more than a muted glare. Halle decides she'll just cook his eggs the same way as hers.

They eat in the living room, off of plastic plates because Halle has long since stopped offering Mello anything on china. He puts his feet, heavy in boots of leather and iron, up on the arm of an expensive chair and ruins the upholstery for good. Halle would have minded if it was anything else, and is alarmed to find that she's letting this boy, with his head of gold and heart of ice and soul of fire, get away with much, much more than she's ever let anyone else.

She notices, after they finish their eggs and she washes the plates and Mello is gone and the world moves on, that he comes more often after that. Sometimes he is waiting when she gets home, demanding what happened during the day. He waits while she showers, demands her opinion on things as soon as she turns off the water and climbs out.

She notices, but she tries not to think too much about it. And then his hideout blows up, and a redhead turns up at her door heaving the blond's unconscious body over her threshold, and she doesn't have any choice _but_ to think about it.


	3. Brandy

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Quote line is The Libertines and I will totally regret using it on this chapter later because I love that quote. I also slipped in a quote from Desiderata later on, by Max Ehrman. Which you should reeeead.

Note: Hahaha I was reading over the first chapter of this to remind myself what I wrote and I realised that I let me 'Halle is Seven of Nine' idea come across in her speech a bit. Any Voyager geeks out there will be sitting there going "WHUT SHE IS NOTHING LIKE SEVEN" but guys she _totally_ is. To me. And Seven is _kickass_.

Also, an actual relevant note. I know I said this would be three chapters. But see, here's the thing. I lied. After the last chapter, and a couple of the reviews it got, I've decided on a couple of other things I want to toss in here, and I'm going to drag it out a bit. I know it means the first bit is a little rushed and the rest is more drawn out, but maybe the same excuse will work on you guys that works on my friend: "it has Mello, it has PRETTY". Yes this chapter is full of angst and alcohol. Lol it's all I can write.

I'm sorry for the delayed update. I was going to let this fade out and then keem yelled at me for not updating and so I did and now I have renewed vigour. Woop.

x

_do we just keep on pretending, and hope our luck is never ending_

Halle is fed up of getting in late but when you work for Near, it isn't a choice. She supposes she should be proud, exhausted but glowing with the feeling of a job well done, one of the few people in the country working against Kira and getting closer to bringing him to his knees.

Only tonight she doesn't feel proud, she doesn't feel strong or noble or like her job means anything. She feels dirty all over, and she's shaking a little, and she puts the kettle on for coffee and then changes her mind and pours herself a brandy. She drinks it too fast and grimaces, before pushing the glass towards the sink.

She can't get rid of the feeling of filth. She showers, dries herself off, sits in front of her mirror and _still_ doesn't feel clean, so she showers again, turning the heat up and crossing her arms across her chest, drawing deep breaths of warm air. Eventually, she just feels _uncomfortable_, under the constant pressure and heat and some fleeting, artistic part of her brain decides that that's an appropriate metaphor for her life.

Exploded. It had exploded. How the hell had Mello's base _exploded_? No, that was a stupid question. She knew, really - it would have been rigged that way. If Near weren't so certain he wouldn't be caught out Halle is about ninety percent certain that he would have rigged _their_ base to explode on command, so she settles on that explanation for Mello's base going up.

The other explanation, of course, is that the _task force_ - in their infinite wisdom - decided blowing up a boy barely out of his teens was a worthy goal, and Halle _really _doesn't want to think of that as a viable option.

The entire evening had been a horror story. Out of nowhere Near got a report that the taskforce was moving in on Mello's base, then that the base had blown up. And Halle had hovered behind him the whole time, as the almost-albino's mind worked and whirred and she and Gevanni and Rester were made completely redundant, except to dash out to fetch paper or look something up.

_What side am I on_?

Halle steps out of the shower, into the sudden silence and coolness of the bathroom. She exhales.

_What _are_ the sides, for God's sake?_

She doesn't know. She really doesn't know. Because Mello and Near, and even the taskforce - well, they're running the same race for different reasons, and Mello's playing dirty. Near - well, Near is Near. Near is playing fair because right now, that works for him. Halle doesn't have very many delusions about her boss. He looks like a kid and can't function without a toy in his hands and on some days, he scares her more than Mello, because he is perfect - a genius, pure, almost invisible, translucent and hovering just out of reach. And perfection has always, always meant the eradication of emotion, so Halle knows she can't count on Near for anything.

Mello, on the other hand - now, Mello, he's full of feeling and passion and drive and emotion. He is charged with it, running off a never-ending supply of aggression and self-loathing and anger. He doesn't walk through life, he blazes, not just setting things aflame but tearing them apart in a tornado of ash and fire.

And that means Halle can't count on him either. Not, of course, that she thinks for one second that she has formed a _bond_ with Mello, to the extent where she'd have the chance to depend on him. There is no dependence in their relationship. It's all cold hard facts, brutal bargaining and the occasional round of toast on the days he's just too tired to slink off her couch before she wakes up.

She's seen the pictures Near got by satellite. The base in ruins, rubble and bodies strewn across the place. The kind of devastating fallout that people use to prove that bombs _can_ be dangerous, after a scare when one goes off and no one dies and there's only a little dent in the side of a train station. She didn't see Mello in the picture. She didn't expect to.

Halle realises that she has been standing in her bathroom for a good ten minutes now. The water clinging to her hair has gone cold, and a drop trickles unpleasantly down her spine. She shivers. She drops the towel, and goes back to the shower.

-

Three days later there is a knock at the door. Halle has scraped a few, precious hours off, a window to 'go placidly amid the noise and haste', if only for a day, and the knocking depresses her. But she answers the door because nowadays she doesn't know what might be important, or who might be dead.

She isn't expecting the sight she's greeted with, but she's a professional, so she steps back from the doorway and lets the strange red-head drag Mello's unconscious form into her apartment.

The door shuts.

"Halle Lidner, right?" the red-head says. His voice has a twang of the British about it, more pronounced than the faint lilt she picks up in Mello and Near. He looks at her with wide, earnest eyes, and looks like he doesn't care if she's bloody _Kira_ so long as she'll help Mello.

"Yes. What happened to - no, this was - his base?"

The red-head nods. Halle thinks he might be around Mello's age, maybe a little younger. She thinks, suddenly and fleetingly, that he might be his brother, because to drag someone in the state Mello is across the country and onto the doorstep of someone he didn't know would probably take a lot more than some friendly compassion.

"Onto the couch. Come on, help me - name?" She shoots the last bit as a question at him.

"Matt," he answers, too casually for giving a name in this day and age, and she wonders if he even knows what Mello's involved in here. What she's involved in.

Then she catches sight of Mello's face, and realises that if _she_ was the one who'd just brought him in here, protecting her name would be the least of her worries too.

The skin on half of his face is melted away. Flesh is visible underneath, pale and then vibrant all of a sudden, chunks of skin still clinging on, dirt and soot making a harsh outline of the wound. He has burns down that side of his body, too, and in places the leather has fused to his skin. A gash, probably caused by glass or timber, runs across his stomach, and the strips of material that had been used as a makeshift bandage are peeling away.

Halle covers her mouth, turns her head to the side. For a second, her vision is blurred, and her throat is constricted, and she's _sure_ she's going to make some kind of over-emotional noise. _Get a grip_. You're the adult here, she thinks. You're the professional. Get a hold of yourself, be calm. Think.

"Matt. Get me some towels." She points to the bathroom. She's already heading to the kitchen. "And bring all the tablets you can find from the cabinet on the left."

She hears him scrambling up, heading to the bathroom, and she pulls open the nearest cabinet. She keeps the rubbing alcohol next to the real stuff for a good reason, she thinks, pouring herself a very large brandy. She hesitates, and then pulls down a second glass for Matt.

When she gets back, Matt is crouched next to Mello, carefully avoiding looking at his face. He staggers to his feet when she comes into the room, scooping the towels off the floor and holding out one of the bottles of pills. Halle gestures for him to sit down, and starts rooting through the pills, setting aside the ones that look useful.

Suddenly remembering, she passes Matt his brandy. He looks at her, and somewhere between her inviting him into her home no questions asked and offering him alcohol, they've decided they trust each other. He takes the brandy and doesn't smile, because new friendships aside Mello is still potentially dying a few feet away. They both take a quick mouthful of the burning spirit, and get to work.

-

Matt is nineteen, lazy, and vaguely anti-establishment. He's a hacker, a slacker, he has a lopsided grin that flickers on and off, once they've got Mello into a mostly-stable condition and confined him to Halle's bed. Halle notices that under his body warmer he's not wearing anything else, and realises where the strips of cloth across Mello's stomach came from. She offers him one of Rester's shirts that she was supposed to be returning after having them cleaned for him.

Halle is older, wiser and much, much more tired, and she knows that even if Mello makes it through tonight and past tomorrow, he's living a life that means he won't be lucky for that much longer.

But she knows that Matt doesn't need to be told that right now, and perhaps not at all. She knows eventually, he'll work it out, because she's seen it in his eyes - he's following Mello now, and if Mello goes down Matt is going to be going down with him. It's ridiculous, suicidal, and - Halle thinks, as she casts a glance towards her bedroom door - absolutely and completely understandable.

Quietly, in a dark apartment, they clink glasses to a job well done and a life well saved. They both have questions, but it'll wait until morning.

Halle still doesn't know which side she's on. But if this is the one she's doomed to live - and die - on, she thinks she might be able to cope with that.

x

Second note: Guys please don't let me turn this into Halle/Matt. I know you didn't even think it was possible but now I have them in a room together and I just _want_ to. Please stopme. Mello/Halle. Say it to me if you choose to review. Mello/Halle. Bialy, if you want to deviate, do a oneshot or something. Don't mess this up with your inability to put Matt in a room with a woman without wanting to pair them up. _This is exactly what happened with Pyrotechnics._


	4. Spaghetti

Disclaimer: Don't own Death Note, Mello, Halle, Matt, Rester or Near. However, the two foodstuffs mentioned in this chapter happen to be practically the only non-microwaveable things I can cook. I ownz mad pasta making skills. Quite is Desiderata, Max Erham. Uh. Ehrman? I've credited it before in this fic anyway.

Note: Yes, it's not dead. Thanks to koomiii (I hope I spelt that right, I am too tired to check, sorry m'dear :D) I got my second wind and hopefully this won't be a one-off random update but the start of a new spree. I have the next chapter completely mapped out in my head so hopefully it'll mean I'll get round to doing it quicker. This feels a bit like a non-chapter to me, really, but...it's necessary. For me. Bridging gaps again. Also I like Matt so blah. And this ISN'T Matt/Halle, it just kinda looks that way if you squint. It's just kind of hard to write Mello/Halle when he's unconscious. Don't worry. The action will be MAD when he comes to. Um. I hope.

Yeah, anyway, belated Merry Christmas everyone :3

x

_Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should_

-

In the morning, Matt wakes up first.

Halle is still asleep when the door of her bedroom creaks open. Padded footsteps of a boy in socks move up to her bed, and the light filtering through the blinds is obscured by a shadow.

"Halle Lidner?"

Distantly, she hears her name. But the recesses of sleep are so warm and so inviting, and she hasn't dreamt about Kira or Mello or Near at all, so it's all so _innocent_ and _easy_ to just stay there, curled up in the blankets, and ignore whoever it is that wants her up.

"Ms Lidner?"

Ignore it. It'll go away, no one stays around to bother that much. It can't be urgent. If it was urgent they'd be more insistent and it's not so...

"Halle?" A poke on her shoulder. And then another poke. And then –

"Okay, okay," she mumbles hoarsely, rolling over, eyes still shut. She raises a hand to bat sleep from her clenched lids, and props herself upright. Then, she opens her eyes. "What are you doing in my room?"

Matt, sihoutted in the morning light, his ridiculous goggles pulled up on his head, shrugs. "Am I not meant to be?"

"Well –" Halle starts, about to explain the reasons why it's mildly inappropriate for this teenage boy to have crept into her room this early in the morning, when she was still asleep, but she stops. She catches sight of the look of pure confusion on his face, of genuine naivety, and she realises that no amount of explaining in the world is going to help. "Never mind, Matt."

"Okay." He grins broadly, pleasantly, pointlessly. It's a little bit shaky around the edges, and she remembers Mello.

"Oh..." she says softly, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Is Mello alright? What time is it? How long have I – When did I -?"

"Um, Mello's fine. Well, kinda. Um, yeah he's not really that fine. He's kind of groaning a lot and contorted a bit and I don't know, I thought it might be a good idea to wake you –"

Halle's already out of bed and pulling on a robe over her pyjamas. It's thin and powder blue and a half-hearted Christmas present from an ex-boyfriend, but right now that doesn't matter. Right now, Mello's in trouble, and he's hurting, and Halle needs to get to him –

And for a second, in the middle of the rising panic and Matt's anxious hand-twisting, she stops.

_What?_

Mello – but - no. She shouldn't _care_, not _that_ much. A vested interest, sure, but – this...?

She shakes off the feeling because she's awake now, and all the fancies of dreaming have faded into calm assurance and Halle Lidner. Cool and collected and in control and all business, and right now the business is Mello.

Mello's still on the couch and if she weren't worrying so much, Halle would have wondered where Matt had slept, would have noticed his body warmer bunched up in a makeshift pillow right next to the couch. As things stand, though, she just pushes it aside, leaning over Mello.

"How long has he been like this?" she asks, brushing his fringe aside and pressing the palm of her hand against the flat of his forehead. It's warm, and damp with perspiration.

"A minute or so," Matt tells her. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know," Halle says, reaching for the bag she'd left by the couch the night before. A few painkillers forced down his throat as he drifts into semi-consciousness is all she can manage, and Mello relaxes. He's still breathing and it doesn't look like he's in so much pain. A job well done, she thinks dryly, and sinks back.

Matt drops to the floor next to her, and pulls himself into a cross-legged position. He looks at her expectantly, trustingly, and she's reminded forcibly of a child, maybe a school kid. "Thank you," he says earnestly.

"He needs a doctor," Halle says brusquely, brushing aside his gratitude.

Matt looks worried. "We can't. Mello – um – well I know you know him a bit and probably you know more about him right now than I do, but he's – he's involved in – stuff." He waves his hand inefficaciously.

Halle understands, but shakes her head. "Doesn't matter. There's a doctor – a doctor Near put us onto – who doesn't ask questions if the patient's coming from him. In case anything happens to us on the Kira investigation and we need assistance and can't go to a regular hospital...he doesn't ask for documents, doesn't ask for names – just a face he can trust and a reference from Near."

Matt's brows knit. "That sounds great but how are we going to get a reference from Near?"

And it isn't strange to her for a second that he knows who Near is, and vaguely, she wonders why that is. She's just started accepting what this boy has to say, and...and that doesn't make sense. Not for her.

"Leave that to me," she says, getting to her feet and dusting imaginary dirt from her robe. "We just need to keep him here, and safe, and _stable_ until we can deal with it."

The redhead nods, climbing to his own feet. "What can I do to help?"

"You can look after him." Halle checks the clock, hanging on the wall behind the couch where Mello's sprawled. "I have to go to work in forty minutes. You can stay here today?" It's half inquiry, half order, and Matt nods again.

Halle pulls on clothes while only half-concentrating, and it takes her three tries to successfully do up her bra. Her mind is elsewhere – in the living room, with the burnt-out blond and his puppy-like friend.

_Why had she cared so much?_

It didn't make any sense. Surely – surely if Mello died, things would be better? No more pressure on her, for a start, one less factor for the SPK to deal with in their fight against Kira, one less dangerous rouge element...

But when Matt had woken her up, told her Mello was in pain, those thoughts hadn't occurred to her at all. The only things she had thought about were getting there quickly, and stopping the pain.

It had been an emotional response, pure and simple, and on one level, that comes as a relief. She knows what it is, and that means she can deal with it. It's just a case of keeping those emotions in check and remembering to use _logic_ instead of just gut-feeling.

The bigger question, though, is just when she got 'emotions' for Mello, and what exactly those emotions are.

She isn't sure she wants to delve too deeply into that matter. Especially not when she's less than an hour away from standing face to face with Near, and having to lie through her teeth for yet another day. So she presses down the rising questions, checks her make-up one last time, straightens her shirt, and pushes open the door.

Matt is sitting by the couch again, staring morosely at the carpet and tracing a pattern on his sock. She notices that his shoes are placed neatly by the door, next to her own, like he's respecting her authority in the apartment and trying his best to follow her rules without imposing enough to actually ask what they are.

The thought that it's sweet crosses her mind a split second before she remembers that he's following Mello and that sweet isn't going to get him anywhere at all.

He looks up, and offers her a smile. "He seems okay now," he tells her, and it's appropriate that he starts the conversation with Mello. It's what they're both most worried about right now, after all.

She nods. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Huh?"

"Breakfast. You do eat, don't you?" She quirks and eyebrow, and Matt flushes.

"Y-yeah – of course! I – um - what do you – I'll have whatever you're having."

"I'm not."

"Oh. Right. Um...toast?" he suggests, looking embarrassed.

"Toast will be fine."

The kitchen, when she reaches it, is quiet and cool. She pulls some bread out of the bag and slots it into the toaster, pushing down the lever and bending to hunt down the pots of jam she keeps in the cupboards. As she's lining them up on the work surface, someone clears their throat behind her.

Predictably, it's Matt, hovering in the doorway and looking a little uncertain. "Hey," he says. "I just kind of...wanted to say thank you. For Mello. And for letting me hang here with him and stuff."

Halle shrugs. "Don't worry about it." Then, she frowns. "But I must say, Matt. You seem a lot more – well, you seem awkward. A lot more unsure of yourself than you did last night. Any reason why?"

Now it's Matt's turn to shrug and he averts her gaze. The toast pops up, and Halle pulls it out, dropping it onto the plate. As she starts to spread butter over it, she thinks she understands. Last night, Mello had been bleeding and unconscious and at death's door. Matt hadn't cared who he'd gone to so long as they could help. Now, he's had a night and a morning to think on the fact that he's in a strange woman's apartment, trusting both his and Mello's life to someone he doesn't know, imposing on a person he's never met...

No wonder he's a little more shy, she thinks, with a small smile, as she turns to hand him his toast.

-

The day passes slowly – achingly slowly, and every time Near says her name, she starts, convinced he's going to ask her why Mello is in her apartment. But he doesn't, and as slow as it is, the day passes. Halle leaves, heading for home with a file under her arm, and a few thin sheets of paper about the doctor folded neatly inside.

Matt is asleep when she gets in, curled by the couch. Mello seems unmoved and about as peaceful as he's going to get, given the circumstances. Halle lets the door shut behind her, making sure it's quiet, and treading softly as she approaches the sleeping pair.

They're an incongruous pair, at that. Mello, so dark and angry and brooding is so vastly in contrast to the laid-back, self-conscious Matt that for a moment, Halle wonders what the real relationship between them is. She wonders fleetingly if Matt is another lackey, press-ganged into service, but she dismisses the notion. The panic in Matt's eyes that she saw the night before is still lingering in her mind.

So...he's a friend?

Huh. So Mello has friends.

She supposes the notion isn't that strange. After all, doesn't she eat breakfast with him sometimes? Discuss the issues of day? Chat, make jokes, enjoy his company, try to make him laugh because she likes the sound...

And her gaze shifts from Matt, so youthful and relaxed, to Mello.

He looks so much older now.

It's been a few days at the most since she last saw him, but he looks different. Absurdly so, in fact. He looks longer, leaner, tougher, like his scrawny, wiry limbs developed into slender muscle overnight. And with the wound down his face, still raw and bare, he looks older. He looks...well, he doesn't look like a kid anymore.

But Halle can't forget. He _is_ a kid, and she can remember the first night she met him, how childlike he seemed, how damned young he was, and now...now, he looks more than his age, he looks tough and mean and strong and –

This case has aged him, and he's not even supposed to be working on it.

Maybe it'll age Matt, too. It's sure as hell aged her.

-

At eight, Halle is cooking spaghetti. The sauce is simmering, waiting to be served, being kept warm, while she stirs pasta into water and watches it cook. Matt is still asleep, and Mello hasn't woken up or made any kind of movement. Nevertheless, she's made enough for three, out of some vain hope, some fancy. It doesn't matter. It can be frozen down.

The phone rings, and shifting her spatula into her other hand, she reaches across and scoops up the cordless sitting by the kettle before it can wake either of the boys.

"Hello?"

"Lidner?"

"Rester," she says, pleasantly surprised. She likes Rester. He's straightforward and forthright and strong and honest. He's not some daunting child genius like Near or overly-skilled prodigy hotshot like Gevanni. He's just...Rester. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just calling to check up. You seemed very distant today. Oh, and to remind you I need my shirts back." There's a smile in his voice. She's spoken to Rester on the phone quite a lot, and even met him for dinner a couple of times, and it's always like this. Strictness and business on the job, and then this relaxed, easy conversation when they're off the clock.

"Yes, I keep forgetting. I'm sorry." Matt flashes up in her mind, and she adds, "I'll bring them tomorrow, but I spilt some wine on one the other day so I need to get it cleaned again. White, don't worry, so it won't stain."

"Glad to hear it. You better be paying."

"I will, don't worry," she smiles.

"So – today?"

Halle pauses, stirring the spaghetti. It's almost done. "I'm fine," she says, trying to make it sound as truthful as possible. And she shouldn't need to have to _try_, the lie should be slipping out. Easily. Like always. But it isn't – something's stopping her, and the word 'fine' is accompanied by a mental image of blond hair stained red.

And Mello's having far too much of an effect on her for this to be normal.

"It's not Mello, is it?"

For a second her blood runs cold.

"What?" she asks, a little too sharply, and then realises what her tone could have given away.

"The taskforce blowing up his hideout. All that mess. All that death. I thought maybe –"

Halle fights to keep the relief out of her voice. "Oh – right! No, no – I'm fine, really. Thank you. I'm fine."

"...Right." Rester doesn't sound convinced, but he doesn't sound suspicious, either, and as bad as it sounds, Halle is suddenly kind of glad he's always favoured brawn over brains.

"Up for dinner tonight?"

"Hm? Oh, no, I'm sorry. My food's almost ready."

"Okay." Faintly, Rester sounds disappointed, but before Halle can apologise, or ask anything else, he's said, "I'll leave you to it then. Just...call me if you need anything, right? See you, Lidner." And he's hung up.

She turns to see Matt sitting in the doorway. "Colleague?" he asks.

She nods. "And a friend," she adds, on a whim, smiling a little to herself. "I hope you like pasta."

"Love it," Matt says, and she spoons it out and hands him a plate. "Did you get anywhere with the doctor?"

Halle nods as she doles out a second portion. "I got the form that will get him out here. Basically verifies that Near's okayed the call-out. But when he gets here...when he gets here, he's going to realise that Mello's not really on his patients list."

"Then what?"

"Then we have to do some fast talking." She turns to him with a sly smile and a glint in her eye, twirling spaghetti onto her fork. "And I need to pick out a low-cut top."

Matt grins. "No way."

"I'm afraid so."

He's relaxed again, Halle notices, and Matt makes no sense to her at all. It's almost like he'd been worrying that as soon as she woke up he was going to throw him out, throw them both out, that last night was a fluke...but now that her help is guaranteed, he's completely at ease.

Halle isn't used to ease. She's used to suspicion and paranoia and caution and obsession and Death Notes and murder and –

And Matt isn't like that at all, and really, she realises, it's kind of refreshing.


	5. Donuts

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or anythign associated with it. The Doctor in this chapter is my own creation, I haven't stolen him from anywhere. Lyrics line is Metro Station, Kelsey.

Note: I KNOW I KNOW IT'S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS I DESERVE ALL OF YOUR HATE. Comments at the end because after seven damn months I'm pretty sure you're tired of hearing my excuses and just want to read the bloody story.

x

_and it's gonna feel tougher each and every day_

_-_

"We have received news that Soichiro Yagami is dead," Near says, and he could be talking about anything in the world - cartoons, toy robots, wildlife and shrubbery - anything but the life of a good man.

"From the Japanese task force?" Rester asks, brow furrowed, while part of Halle collapses inside.

_They are people_. It hits her now more than ever. Halle has next to no confidence in the task force's detective abilities, but Yagami…

She'd seen him. Just on monitors, sure, but she'd _seen_ him, and she'd heard him and she'd listened to his voice break when he thought about the fact that his daughter had been kidnapped -

(And Mello had done that, the boy-man sprawled on her couch with a bleeding face and a soot-blackened soul - he is far from blameless, far from deserving. He is twisting intrigue and hollow, vicious laughter and he is unconscious, in _her apartment_, and she is risking life and limb to save his life.)

"Correct," Near says, still impassive, still disinterested.

He'd been a good man. An honest cop who'd made it top chief of the NPA off of merit and hard work and absolutely no office politics. He had a wife and two kids and he'd worn glasses and his hair was greying and he was still _fighting_, fighting for the sake of people who couldn't care less…

…And he was dead.

"He sustained wounds from the attack on Mello's hideout five days ago. He died of them shortly afterwards, it appears." Near's gaze flicks between monitors, and returns to the blue-and-silver plastic figurine in his hands. "Mello's body, however, has not been found. It is possible he survived the incident. Given my experiences with Mello, I certainly wouldn't rule this possibility out."

His voice lilts, oddly, and Halle is confused and can't place it until she realises that his voice has been changed by _emotion_. The thing seems so foreign and strange in context of Near that she is taken aback for a few moments just trying to reconcile it with him. And then the nature of the sentiment hits her with full force, twisting her stomach before unravelling it to cold, sick disbelief.

He sounded happy.

He is happy that Mello might be alive. Happy. This boy who'd killed their entire team - and Halle knows she can't criticise him for that, isn't even going to try, because after all, she's doing it, too, getting caught up in Mello's fire and each strange rush of euphoria that attacks her sensibilities when she remembers he is alive. It isn't the fact that he's happy that bothers her. It's the fact that his composure can break and he can feel _happy_ about _Mello living_, but cannot feel a shred of _anything_, anything at all, for the death of Soichiro Yagami.

On some days she hates him more than she has ever hated Mello. Which, she admits, silently in the recesses of her dreams, is a bit of a fallacy, because really, she's never even hated Mello at all.

-

She can't look at him for the rest of the day. When she delivers reports, she keeps her eyes focused downwards, on papers and figures and cold, hard facts, that have every reason to be impassive and are as unmoved by death as they are by life. Near notices. Of course he does. He's _Near_.

The part that surprises her is the fact that he brings it up.

"You have refused to look at me all day, Lidner. Have I perhaps developed a facial blemish?"

On any other person, it would be a joke. The crispness of the boy's tone, the sheen of his eyes, tells her it's not. It's a jab, a twist of a stick to remind her that he _knows_ her, that he can get inside her head if she wants. She drags her gaze upwards, fighting against gravity, to meet his.

"Of course not, Near. I'm tired. I apologise."

"That is an excuse, not an explanation."

There is no question. By all rights, she could walk away. She doesn't. She can't.

"Soichiro Yagami didn't deserve to die." It's out of her mouth now. She barely realised she was speaking aloud. Now, it's too late - but she realises she wouldn't change it. She _wanted_ to say it, she's been wanting to say it all day. She holds his stare.

"His death is what has been bothering you?" Near regards her, owlishly, head craned upwards. She half expects him to tilt his neck - but of course, that would be too comical, too much of an acknowledgement of curiosity for _Near_. "Understandable. But it does not explain your actions towards me."

"You don't care," she says, because it's an explanation, barely, but the _only_ explanation. It's futile, and the childishness of her words strikes her the moment they have passed her lips. Arguments like 'you should' or 'it's respectful' have never worked, not here, in the shallow silver of a secret base of operations, in a world that is slowly going insane.

"You believe I should?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You cared about Mello living."

"That is different. That is Mello."

She isn't thinking. If she was thinking, she wouldn't have said it. She would have spoke with her mind and her thoughts and her rationality and not with the cold, snaking realisation that was growing in her gut -

"His life was worth more than Mello's."

And she believes it.

Near, for a moment, does not respond. He studies her, from her stiff posture and rigid shoulders to the defiance on her face, tempered with careful, practiced restraint.

"I do not agree with you." She thinks she opened her mouth to respond, because he raises a hand to stop her. "And I am in charge. Please continue with your work, Lidner."

She does. There is nothing else she can do. She's kidding herself if she thinks she can turn away from any of this. And Soichiro Yagami's life _was_ worth more than Mello's, but of the two of them, Mello is the only one she has a hope in hell of doing anything to save.

-

Near doesn't keep them as late as usual. She walks out with Rester, still feeling knocked out of joint. Rester - wonderful, understanding, patient Rester - recognises her disaffection for what it is, and keeps up a pleasant, inane chatter as he leads her to her car. He gently reminds her about his shirts and she fishes them out of the back seat. She apologises again for the absence of the one currently being worn by a red-head who's been sleeping on the floor of her apartment, only she explains it away as something a little different.

"White wine, you told me." He smiles gently. Rester is so, so much more than Near gives him credit for, and Lidner feels another swell of distaste towards their boss.

"Yeah. Um, I have to go. I'm sorry, Rester. Thank you."

"Get some rest, Halle." He is concerned. Despite herself, her heart swells. She has missed friendship.

"I will."

She doesn't. She heads towards the nearest shopping district, out of phase with the rest of the world. She forces herself back into the moment, slipping her purse into a pocket. For around an hour, she browses stores, aimlessly, watching people move about their lives. It seems strange. Foreign. Like, this is something she's never going to go back to, even if she lives through this, even if it all comes to an end. She's never going to be able to just _be_, not ever again, because good people die and she's always known this, but now -

Now the lines are not clear cut. The good are not always killed by the bad, the good are killed by kids in leather who are in over their heads, or by crazed murderers who think they're a god, spurred on by idiots willing to follow anyone and anything. Right and wrong are beginning to dissolve and it feels like the planet is reforming around her, with ideals changing and rules shifting and old lines becoming obsolete…

Halle can't change with it. She's stuck in her ways, twenty-nine and too late to change. On days like this, she feels like none of it means anything. If the lines are changing and the world are shifting - _what are they fighting for_?

And if she's honest, she's always hated ideology. And so she ties herself to something concrete, and she decides that from now on her only goals are to stop Kira, stay alive, and try to save the two teenagers in her apartment from charging to their deaths.

She heads home with a box of donuts, a bag of new clothes and renewed determination.

-

Mello is still unconscious when she gets in. Matt is watching TV, cross-legged, eating a single dry slice of bread. With a sudden surge of guilt, Halle realises that she hadn't left anything for him to eat. Any other kid would probably have ransacked her kitchen looking for a snack, but Matt - Matt has taken one slice of bread. He hasn't even deprived her of a lick of margarine.

She laughs. It comes out a little strangled, all of the absurdities of the whole damn situation hitting her at once and then it changes, splits into something genuine and honest and she's just amazed that with everything happening and everything changing there are still people in the world who will only take a piece of bread from your kitchen.

Matt starts at the sound, and looks round. He sighs in relief when he sees it's her. She did come in rather quietly, she thinks, her laughter finally subsiding. A smile lingers on her face, and she feels young again. No. She feels her age. She shouldn't be feeling old. She isn't even thirty.

"Hey," Matt greets her, bouncing up enthusiastically, and reaching out to take her coat and scarf. He's like a puppy, really. Eager to please, unwilling to offend. Hovering back in the doorway of a new room before she calls him through, telling him it's okay, he came come in.

"I brought donuts," she says, holding up the box. Matt's eye's light up.

"Excellent! I'm starving!" The remainder of the slice of bread is still in his hand.

"I can probably manage to make up some real food first," she decides. "Oh, I got you some clothes. My colleague is going to want his shirt back sooner or later and your body warmer is…rather stained." _With blood and memories you probably don't want to remember_, she doesn't add.

Matt goes red. "You didn't need to do that. I could have -"

Halle raises her eyebrows. "Oh, I didn't realise you had a college fund."

He looks confused, and he looks embarrassed. Halle sighs, suppressing a smile.

"Take the clothes. Enjoy the food I am about to make. Look presentable. Don't hesitate to eat my food next time I am not here. The doctor will be here in about an hour and a half."

"He's coming?" Matt follows her into the kitchen. She holds out the bag of clothes. Hesitantly, he takes them. "Thank you."

"You are welcome, and yes he is. I intend to lie to him until he agrees to treat Mello." She begins to pull things out of the refrigerator , and turns on the oven. She feels like something a bit meaty tonight.

Matt is holding the bag awkwardly, his arm half-outstretched, as if he isn't sure if he should take the clothes or give them back to Halle. "What if he won't treat him?"

"He will."

"But what if he won't?"

Halle turns to him, all charm and devil's smiles, honey eyes and curving flesh. "He will," she says, languidly, assuredly, and this time, Matt doesn't doubt her.

-

Matt is devouring the last donut as if it is the last food he will ever eat. Halle, wiping sugar away from the corner of her mouth with her little finger, comes to a conclusion: Matt likes donuts. He really, really likes donuts.

Mello hasn't stirred. Matt had been nervously checking his breathing ever couple of minutes, until she had forced him to sit down and eat, and then the donuts had come out, and now he only checks his breathing every ten minutes. It's progress, at least.

There is a knock on the door, and Matt jumps. He swallows, hard. Halle suspects he almost asphyxiated himself on a chunk of donut, and raises a finger to her lips.

"It's the doctor, I expect," she says, very quietly. "Take your bag of clothes, go to the bathroom, close the door. Stay there. Try not to make any noise."

Matt nods, clambering to his feet and quietly as he can. The knock comes again, firmly, just as the door to her bathroom is softly pushed shut.

"Doctor Issacs," Halle greets the man on the other side of the door, once it's been opened. Her tone is warm with honey and she has deliberately dressed down, in low-slung jeans and a light, floral top. The material is thin, and leaves little to the imagination.

"Ms Lidner," Isaacs says, his smile as warm as her voice. His eyes are fixed firmly on her face.

Dawson Isaacs, Halle thinks, is a number of things. He is a very competent doctor, he is a very incompetent socialite. He is demure and charming, and perfectly useless around women unless they have something drastically wrong with them to which there can only possibly be a medical solution. He is far too polite to ogle her chest, and far, far too heterosexual to be able to ignore it.

"Won't you come in?" she asks, stepping backwards, bowing forwards _just a little_, head dipped upwards. She returns his smile.

"Absolutely. Yes. Ms Lidner. What's the problem?"

"Personally, I'm perfectly healthy, Doctor Isaacs." She favours him with another honeyed smile. "I need to speak with you. May I offer you a cup of coffee? Tea?"

"You certainly can. I mean, may. I mean, it's your house. You can offer whatever you - yes please. Tea would be lovely. Unless you're having coffee. Coffee is fine too. Lovely, in fact." Isaacs lets the whole thing out as one whole, long string of verbal diarrhoea. He doesn't stutter, not once, and he never has. He just keeps going until he lands on a sentence he thinks sounds vaguely correct.

"Please, sit," Halle says, because otherwise he'd be standing three paces inside her door determinedly not looking at her breasts for the entire duration of his visit. She gestures to a chair, and holds position until he takes his seat. "I'll just go sort tea."

"Or coffee."

She returns with two cups on a tray, with a small jug of milk and a miniature bowl of sugar cubes finishing the picture. The crockery is far too delicate for Halle's tastes - an inheritance from a relative she was fond of - but suits the situation well enough.

"How many sugars, Doctor?"

"Two," he says decisively. "No milk."

She fixes his tea and hands it to him. Picking up her own cup, she perches herself on the arm of his chair. The good doctor appears to have found something very interesting on the rim of his cup, and does not shift his eyes.

"I have a problem," she says, quietly.

Isaacs sips his tea. "I see."

"It's of quite a…sensitive nature," Halle says, dropping her voice a few octaves and leaning to speak into his ear. "I really can't risk this getting out. Can I trust you, Doctor?"

"Of course. Doctor-patient confidentiality, of course. Of course."

"The thing is…" she continues, stirring her tea slowly. "My friend is sick. Well, no…I don't suppose that's true. A friend of mine has a son who was recently involved in some…less than legal activities. He was injured, quite severely. Unfortunately, taking him to a hospital is out of the question…they're always so fussy about knowing what happened, not like you." She rests her tea on her knee, places a hand on the edge of his shoulder.

"I was hired for my discreetness. Privateness. You know. That." Isaacs' eyes leave his cup, flick up to meet hers.

"You can see why it's a slightly sensitive issue, Doctor? She takes him to the hospital, they record what he was doing, word gets around…these are not safe times for that to happen, Doctor."

"No, they are not." The man's lips purse, and a momentary anger flares up in his eyes. Halle smiles inwardly. She has judged him correctly. To a man such as him, a doctor through and through, the idea of one man arbitrarily dishing out fatal punishment would surely be reprehensible. Kira does not accord with the Hippocratic Oath.

"You'll help me?" she asks, rather breathily.

Isaacs sets down his cup. "Near hasn't really signed off on this, has he?"

Halle leans back, but keeps her hand on his shoulder. She glances away. "No, he hasn't. This is a misuse of the agreement you made. But I'm asking you to do it anyway." She turns her gaze back to him now, imploringly.

"Then do it I shall." He gets to his feet. "Please show me the patient."

They had moved Mello from the couch earlier, and laid him on Halle's bed, out of sight. It was best, she and Matt had decided, not to present the doctor with a charred body the moment he entered the apartment. It turns out to have been a good idea. As soon as Isaacs claps eyes on Mello, he lets out a low hiss of breath.

"Ms Lidner!" is all he takes the time to say, before rushing to the bedside. His bag is open and then he is taking Mello's temperature, fishing out bandages and antiseptic, and finally a small bottle of pills. He starts muttering under his breath. "How did this happen?" he asks.

"I don't think I can - "

"No, no, you misunderstand me. I don't need to know all the details. Just enough to treat. A fire or an explosion? How recently?"

"An explosion, five days ago."

Isaacs studies Mello intently, and then nods once. "Thank you, Ms Lidner," he says, all business. "That will be all."

Halle shuts the door, and lets him work.

-

It is approximately thirty minutes before Isaacs emerges from the room. Halle stands up, pushing her hair back.

"Doctor?"

Isaacs shuts the door quietly behind him, and then pauses, hand still on the doorknob.

Halle steps forward. "Is he alright?"

"He," Isaacs begins, slowly, "is going to live. He is going to have a nasty scar and he is going to be in a lot of pain. But he is going to live."

Halle lets out a sigh of relief, as real as it is for show. For a second, all she can think about is that _Mello is going to live_ and that so far, so good, she's _done_ it, she's keeping him alive. And then, she notices the look on Isaacs face.

"Ms Lidner," he says. "The boy in your bedroom is a wanted man."

Halle's breath catches. In a second, she has switched from flowery young woman to Agent Lidner, her back ramrod-straight and her eyes cool.

"That's Mello, isn't it?"

A pause. Then, "Yes. It is."

"And you - a member of the SPK - are protecting him."

Halle wants to close her eyes, rub her temples and think of something, _anything_ to say. She can't. She keeps her eyes on him, her breathing even, and she says, after five seconds of silence and grasping at straws, "I could not let him die."

Isaacs opens his mouth. There are probably a hundred questions he wants to ask. _How did he get here? Why are you protecting someone who killed your colleagues? Are you insane? Does Near know? Will you shoot me if I try to run out of here?_

Isaacs closes his mouth. He hands her a bag containing three bottles of pills. "One of each of these four times a day. Keep the wound clean. No unnecessary risks. He is lucky not to be dead."

He moves past her, dropping the bag into her hands. He is by the door when she catches up to him.

"Doctor Isaacs? Thank you." She means it.

He turns, and studies her briefly. "It's my job, after all," he says, and Halle recognises the tone. It's the tone her thoughts have been playing out in all day, it's the sound of her voice every time she has had to kill someone in the line of duty.

_It's my job, after all_, he says. _But on days like this I hate it_, he doesn't say.

"Goodbye, Ms Lidner."

And Halle is left, the click of the door latch the last sound in her apartment. Then, there is a dull cough.

"Can I come out now?"

-

It is sometime after eleven o'clock. Halle has made hot chocolate, and she and Matt are sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room, facing each other in the almost-dark between the hum of the lone light in the kitchen and the low murmur of the television set.

"How do we get him to take the pills?" Matt asks meekly, like he thinks it's obvious to everyone but him.

"With difficulty," Halle says grimly, but she knows she will do it.

"That doctor, he…d'you think he'll tell Near?"

Halle stares at her hot chocolate. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "Although, I'm not sure it'll matter if he does."

"Huh?"

"Near - today…" Halle drifts off, remembering. She feels sleepy and disjointed but remarkably safe, and desperately reassured. "He's happy. At the idea of Mello living. If Isaacs tells him…I doubt he will do very much about it. He will just collect the knowledge, the way Near does. More and more and more things to know, and he collects them all together until he knows _everything_ and then -"

"- and then it doesn't matter what anyone does or how they do it because he's already thought out the whole thing, hasn't he? And he's planned everything," Matt finished for her.

Halle looks up, surprise etched over her elegant features. "Yes," she says, in an intake of breath. "Matt…Matt, how do you know Near? Or Mello, for that matter?" She asks this quietly, knowing how sensitive this information is, knowing how much his revealing it could mean.

She's surprised, again, when he doesn't hesitate. "I can't really tell you too much, Ms Lidner, but I'll say what I can say. We were at an orphanage together."

"Call me Halle, Matt. An orphanage? You mean Wammy's House?"

He nods. "So I guess you know Mello and Near were both there. Top two in all the classes, Near always just that little bit ahead."

"I know that, yes. Near told us a little about Wammy's House, about its purpose, about why the children there are chosen."

Matt takes a large gulp of hot chocolate, and shifts position. He brings his knees up, all long and gangly teenager, and he's wearing the clothes Halle got him. "I was there, too. I was the third candidate in line."

"Third?" Halle covers up her shock with a sip of chocolate. Matt? Third in line to the position of L? She runs her eyes over him again. He has none of the strangeness of Near - he is not pale, like an old shirt with the colours washed out, his eyes aren't empty, his voice lilts and changes normally, he grins and looks scared and shivers when he's cold. And he doesn't have Mello's crazed anger and ferocious blaze, doesn't have his crashing temper. Matt is just - Matt. He is skinny, his fingers have a touch of nicotine staining on them, he rubs his nose against his sleeve. He's tired, and he yawns. He's a kid, stretching into manhood, all hiccupped adolescence coupled with inevitable maturity.

And here he is. Third.

The boy himself nods. "Yeah. They were always so focused, and me, I just sort of…drifted into it, I guess. I don't know. I don't belong there. I was always a bit…wild." He offers her an almost apologetic grin. She offers him a warm smile.

"So…why are you here?" She knows, though, and his answer doesn't surprise her.

"Because Mello is."

"You're friends?"

"I guess. I don't know. I don't like myself when I'm not around him. I stagnate." He shrugs. "Sounds dumb. But, Ms Lid - Halle - you've met him. You know what I mean, don't you?"

Her voice is quiet and tired when she answers him. "Yes. Yes, I know."

"So I'm just going to follow him. I don't know. Just - if he'll let me, I'm going to tag along." Matt looks away, at the brightness of the television, at the shimmering images of other lives.

"It's dangerous what he's doing, Matt."

"I know. And I know I probably can't help much. But…if something happens to him, and I wasn't there to _try_ to help…" He shakes his head, red hair flopping about his face. "I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

Maybe Halle knew what to say in response. Maybe it hit close to home and she was about to tell him that, or maybe she was going to change the topic, or maybe she was going to drink her hot chocolate, or maybe she was going to go to bed. In the hours and days and years afterwards she will never know, no matter how many times she thinks back to it. Because before she could react, answer, move, or _anything_, her bedroom door had been slammed open with the force of a hurricane. She'd left the lamp on, and now, light floods out of the doorway and sends a heavy shadow spilling out onto the living room carpet. And where the shadow meets flesh…

Mello is standing in the doorway, towering in the lamplight, silhouetted and half-scarred. He is awake. He is alive. He is blazingly, terrifyingly, unstoppably _alive_ -

And all across his face is a storm, all rolling thunder and forks of lightning and the pattern of flames - Mello is awake, and he is _livid_.

Neither Matt nor Halle can speak. Electricity sparks through the room, and it feels like no one is breathing.

"Someone," Mello growls, his voice all cataclysms and destruction and infernos and raging, golden flames, "had better tell me what's going on, _now_."

And through the fire and the ice and the impossibility, beyond all of Mello's unspeakable anger, somewhere deep inside herself, Halle is _euphoric_.

x

Note Deux: Please don't hate me ILY? I'm so so sorry this took so long. It wasn't for lack of demand - per chapter, this is my most reviewed and alerted fic. I've wanted to update this so bad but I've just been so stumped. Today, though, I got an alert from ff telling me phollie. had updated Unblooming. It is far and away the best Halle Lidner fanfic I have seen and I would strongly advice anyone who find this story even vaguely engaging to go over there and read it. It's only three chapters so far so you can't excuse yourself by saying it's too long. It's gold. Go read it. Trust me.

Right. I hate myself for making Isaacs as big a character as he is, I wish Death Note had a doctor I could use. Only I don't because I have a total weakness for doctors and doctor angst and I'm bad enough with just Matsuda, a Death Note doctor would lead to no end of dry and dull oneshots from me. He won't be back though, Isaacs, so don't worry. I think I'm okay with how this turned out. I promise to try to update soon. I've pledged to finish Passages and Antivillain before October. I'll do my best. I hope you enjoyed. Again, I'm so sorry.

And also I am working on a giant Harry Potter project, details on my profile. I would love any help, even from stuff like "WOULD LILY ACT THIS WAY" to "does this section read as if I am an insane dolphin or a serious writer?" Please PM me if you're interested.


	6. Bacon

Disclaimer: OH HAY GUESS WHAT I OWN DEATH NOTE NOW. Except, not. Not mine, making no money, just borrowing and bastardising. Lyrics are Metro Station - Seventeen Forever. I really like Metro Station mmkay.

Note: Sometimes when I'm writing about Mello I think I might just be trying to see how many adjectives I can get into one story. There is less happening in this chapter than I originally intended. I was going to take this right up to just after Mello makes Halle take him to the SPK HQ but I decided this would be a better cut off point and I would just try to get another chapter with you quicker. After having Mello unconscious for about half of my MELLO STORY, I am enjoying having him awake, and I hope you will too.

Errr, if this story wasn't an M before, it is now. Though it makes me lol that I have given this chapter the least sexy title EVER.

x

_we're one mistake from being together  
so let's not ask why it's not right  
you won't be seventeen forever  
and we can get away with this tonight_

_- _

Mello is a changed man.

He is still standing in the doorway of Halle's bedroom. He is obviously weak - the hand pressed against the doorframe is doing a little more than just looking imposing. He is bloodied. He is scarred. He is unwashed and in the days since she saw him last, the fresh-faced, feline boy with the perfectly groomed attitude has _changed_, mutated into this rough, towering pillar of anger and old fire. Mello has always been odd, always been a little too strange and a little wild, but now there is something dark about his anger, deep and coarse, like an oncoming storm.

Mello-the-boy has been eaten away at, pulled under the white foam of the mountain rapids in the dark of a tunnel, and now, standing before them, is a man who has seen death, who has caused death, who, for all his bravado and strength and brilliance, should _be_ dead -

Only he isn't dead. He's standing in the doorway of Halle's bedroom looking as mad as hell.

Halle, she thinks this is hitting her harder than it should have. The breath has been knocked out of her, her throat his tight, all relief and terror and shame at the feeling at once. And all of a sudden it hits her, that she doesn't know how she got here - got to caring about him - changed from reluctantly accepting this strange boy into her life to _liking_ having him there, to craving him there, to finding herself lost for words and stunned in her own apartment after she's saving his damned life.

The first thing he says comes out as a growl, a snarl. "Someone had better tell me what's going on right now."

Halle regains herself. Not quickly enough to kid herself that she's simply glad he isn't dead, and nothing more, but really, she passed that point when she let a guy she didn't know drag him over her doormat and lied to one of Near's contacts to get him medicine. She gets to her feet.

"What's going on here, Mello," she says, her tone all ice and coolness, the perfect foil to his bubbling hostility, "is a little gathering intent on saving your life. Do you have a problem with that?"

Mello crosses the space between them in half of a heartbeat, and all of a sudden he is very close. He is, Halle notices, about three inches shorter than her. She doesn't really feel at an advantage. His breath is awful, a testament to days spent unconscious, he reeks of sweat and flame and leather, and something about the scent hits her -

"I didn't ask for your help." Low, harsh. Not venomous. Mello would never have the self control to be venomous.

"Forgive us for caring what happened to you."

His lip curls. "Why should you even care anyway, Lidner? I'm blackmailing you, remember?"

"Why I care," Halle replies, all stone and control, "is not of your concern. I would have thought that the fact that this caring has led to your _survival_ would be more -"

"Well, you were wrong," he hisses, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, extremes in everything, a caricature of emotion.

"Mello, we were just trying to help -" This is Matt, swaying to his feet, more uncertain, voice unsteady. He is hanging back, shoulders slumped, and everything about his posture makes Halle think 'submissive', a dog that expects to be kicked. Like he knows he's done wrong. Like he knows he shouldn't have tried to save his life.

"I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"

Halle steps backwards, shocked. His attention has left her; he is completely focused on Matt. It strikes her suddenly that he has been ignoring him, deliberately ignoring him, right until now. And now he's _shouting_, fists balled, face contorted.

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME!"

"Mello, I just - it's not - I -"

"Mello, for the love of peace, keep your voice down, or we shall all be arrested." Halle has regained herself, and she steps forward, and places her hand at the point where his shoulder becomes chest, firmly.

"I don't care." But he's dropped his volume.

"You ought to. You know what will happen if you are found."

"I'm as good as dead anyway," he says, and his eyes are fixed on Matt, and Halle doesn't know if he's talking about Kira, the explosion, or something about the skinny red-haired boy hovering behind her. It shouldn't matter.

"No you're not," Matt says, sounding stubborn. He still looks like he expects Mello to lash out at any second, but now that's kind of mingled with him realising that nothing he can say is going to stop that if it's coming. "You're not going to die."

Mello snorts. He looks like he wants to tear the place apart. "Like hell, Matt. You haven't got a clue what's going on here. You're useless."

"He managed to bring you across the country whilst avoiding detection," Halle snaps. Mello has no right to call Matt useless.

Mello is, for a second, taken aback. Then, for the first time, he looks around, and seems to realise where he is.

"Lidner. This is your apartment."

"Astounding. Your skills of deduction are rivalled only be those of L himself."

"Shut the hell up. You didn't even know L."

Halle does not respond. Mello looks at her for a few seconds, as if hoping the force of his rage will push more explanation out of her, but Halle isn't volunteering anything. If Mello wants to know, he can damn well ask.

He doesn't ask. He turns on his heel and strides back into Halle's bedroom. As he rummages through things, making far more noise than would ever be necessary, or perhaps even possible, Matt and Halle look at each other. They do not speak. Maybe this is goodbye for them.

Then Mello reappears. He is carrying a pillowcase, and from what Halle can make out, it has his medications inside it. He points at her. "I'll be seeing you soon," he says, grimly. So he's leaving. Leaving, but not stopping - oh no, the chase is still on and Kira _will_ be his, and Halle should have known, she should have known years and years ago when she joined the FBI that this was going to happen, at some point, that she could only be stone and ice for so long until…

"I won't be seeing you." He is speaking to Matt. It is an order.

"Mello -"

"I won't," Mello repeats, voice low and deadly, "be seeing you."

He turns. He finds his boots. The last look he shoots them is loaded with mistrust and anger, and then he's gone.

And only Mello could make stumbling out of someone's apartment with a pillowcase full of pain meds and unlaced boots look even remotely imposing.

-

There is a brief period that night, after both Matt and Halle have reluctantly decided to settle down to sleep, where they both drift in and out of consciousness, half-thinking that Mello is going to come back. When Halle's alarm goes off at 7.45 and she opens the door of her bedroom at 7.48, the couch is empty, and she knows, as surely as she has known anything, that Mello will not be coming back.

She also knows, just as surely, that the fact that that bothers her is going to cause problems down the line. The nature of these problems, she thinks, has been defined by half-remembered dreams of golden hair and hot breath and seared skin. But she is Halle Lidner, femme fatale and agent extraordinaire, so she pushes the thought aside.

Matt has slept on the floor again. He could, just as easily, have taken Mello's now-vacated spot on the couch, but there he is, on the ground beside it, one lone cushion under his head and one of the jackets Halle bought him as a blanket. He wakes up, bleary eyed and disorientated, and in that gap between sleeping and waking he catches sight of the empty couch, and panic flares up in his eyes. Then, he's waking up properly, and he remembers, and Halle thinks that if she hadn't been FBI trained she wouldn't have noticed the slight, defeated slump of his shoulders.

"He'll be back, eventually," she says, with far more confidence than she feels. Matt nods, almost automatically. Halle sighs.

"Can I - um -" Matt falters. He is cross legged now, looking lost, brow furrowed. "Can I - I mean - if you don't mind, Ms Lidner, could I please stay here for a few more days? I - I don't really have anywhere to go."

Halle turns, sinking into her hip and studying him. Sometimes, when he looks at her, she sees the keen glint of unfettered intelligence behind his eyes, the kind of shackle-less brilliance bred into the kids from the Wammy's House. There is no doubt as to what this boy is. But other times - like now, when he is nineteen and sitting on her floor and Mello has just cast him off like a dirty shirt - Matt is far, far more human than anyone she has come into contact with recently.

"Of course you can. On one condition," she adds, and Matt looks up at her nervously. "You must promise to take as much food from my kitchen as you need. I do not wish to come home to find you have starved to death because I had to work overtime."

Smiling weakly, Matt nods. "And er- could I have a shower?"

"Go right ahead. There are clean towels next to the sink. I will have breakfast ready in about twenty minutes."

Muttering awkward thank-yous, Matt disappears into the bathroom. As Halle peels bacon out of the packet and lays it on a tray to grill, there is the hiss of the shower sputtering into life, and then the sound of running water.

She is just turning the last piece of bacon when she hears the click of the gun, and feels its muzzle press coldly against the small of her back. She does not need to turn or to hear him speak to know the man behind her.

"Where's Matt?" Mello asks.

Halle answers, quietly, steadily. "He's in the shower."

"Turn around."

Halle obeys.

Mello has been gone for perhaps eight hours. In that time, he has procured a change of clothes - all leather and zips, much more heavy, much less elegant than his old attire - and a gun, though these acquisitions have done nothing to sweeten his mood. He is still glowering, still dark with fury. Dark, Halle thinks, is absolutely the right word for him now - his childish malevolence has hardened into something else, something scarred by the harshness of reality, fused into hot bitterness and utter recklessness. It is broad daylight and he has entered her apartment with a gun.

He is looking at her. He has the same tinge of teenage lust in his gaze, but behind that is a deeper - and, again, darker - intent. Halle knows, she knows totally and absolutely, that she should be terrified. But her heart is racing for a different reason.

"Did Matt bring me here? After I -"

Halle spares him the difficulty of finding the right words to describe the events that wound up tearing half his face off, and nods. "He was very concerned about you."

He scoffs.

"Good friends are hard to find, Mello."

"Don't lecture me." He presses the gun against her, into the soft flesh of her side. He is extremely close. She can feel his breath on her, feel his eyes burrowing into her. He smells of chocolate and soot. She thinks it is a smell he will never quite manage to shift.

"Do you mind me asking why you are here?"

"I still need to know more. I wanted to let you know you are still going to be spying on Near for me."

Halle does not move. Mello is still watching her, looking strangely hungry, and the smell of bacon fills the room. Some of it, she is sure, will have burnt. The rush of water from the shower can still be heard.

Mello is very close.

"Send Matt out of the house. I'm going to want to talk to you. Not now, after work."

"Why can't you just -"

"Matt goes," Mello says, low and bestial. "Or I will find another way of getting my information." The gun at her ribs punctuates his point, but for some reason, Halle does not quite believe him. And she knows she is going to do what he tells her anyway.

God, he is _so close_. She can see each broken line of his lips, see where the dull grey line around his irises melts into clear blue. Deftly, out of sight, the gun is twirled in his hand and his fingers take its place, firm against her side, warm against the fabric of her gown. His face is set and hard. His other hand runs up her arm, she shivers, and he reaches her hair, wrapping strands around his fingers. He isn't wearing gloves, she notices. He's always wearing gloves. The tips of his hair brush her cheek as he leans forward, ever so slightly.

If Mello moves any closer, he is going to be -

The shower shuts off. In a blur of black, his hands have left her, the door of her apartment has shut, and except for her and some charred pieces of bacon, her kitchen is empty.

"Halle?"

Matt is standing in front of her, fully clothed and hair fluffy from being towel-dried. At least a few minutes must have elapsed, but she hasn't moved. It doesn't feel as if time has been moving. Her heart still hasn't caught up with the fact that Mello is gone, and Halle draws a deep breath, struggling to get her body back into rhythm.

"Halle?" Matt asks again, anxiously. Absently, she notices there is a thin curl of smoke rising from the grill. "Are you okay?"

"I don't think the bacon is going to be edible," she says.

Matt moves forward. "Seriously, what just happened?" Then his features clear. "Oh. Oh. He was - he came back, didn't he?"

"I think we're going to have to have toast instead." Halle looks up, her heart still out of time.

Matt studies her for a few more seconds, and then nods. "I love toast," he says decisively, and squeezes her shoulder firmly.

-

At eight o'clock that evening, Halle is alone in her apartment. Outside, the sky is dark, November bringing its shroud of darkness down earlier and earlier each day. She has made herself coffee, and is sitting in an armchair staring at a book. Every now and again, she turns a page, unaware of what the story is about.

After hearing what Halle had to say about her encounter with Mello as the bacon burnt, Matt had told her that he would do as Mello wanted, and absent himself from the apartment that evening. Halle had protested, and Matt had turned to her, eyebrows raised, and said, "Come on, you've met him. You think he's really going to let the fact that I wouldn't go out change his plans? He'll just kidnap you. You'll me way more comfortable here." Halle had to admit he had a point, and had bid him farewell at six o'clock.

At ten past eight, Halle places down her coffee mug and goes into the bathroom. When she emerges, Mello is standing in the middle of her living room, unarmed, all wiry muscles and warm leather, completely at odds with every piece of furniture she owns, and she is sure that if he so much as moves, all the coiled up anger and energy locked inside him is going to morph into a hurricane and tear the place apart.

And then he _does _move, powerful and determined, and before Halle knows what is going on she is crushed against the door to her bathroom, and his strong hands are pinning her back. She is dimly aware of there being one on her hip, and the other on her shoulder. His face is contorted, somewhere between a snarl and something undistinguishable, but Halle knows that she has nothing to be afraid of.

Then, he is close, closer than he was that morning, closer than he has ever been, and his lips are pressed against hers, clumsy, unpractised, and brutish. Halle has no time to think, she simply presses back, unyielding, and then Mello's hands are everywhere, and then his lips, are, too, and then _oh God she's naked_, and then -

She is grateful, afterwards, that Mello had the good grace to manoeuvre them towards her bed for what may or may not have been his first sexual experience. It is only natural that he spends the entire time on top, pressing her down, dominating her, and she knows there are reasons other than modesty that make him turn the lights off. He is inexperienced but refuses to allow her to guide him; he is full of anger and desire and desperation, and in the dark, with the smell of him surrounding her, Halle finally admits to herself those thoughts that have only been half-formed until now, finally admits that she really does care too much about this flame-edged youth with a devastated past and no future at all.

His hand finds her cheek as he fumbles for her lips again, and this time it is _different_, suddenly and terrifyingly tender. In that moment, Halle Lidner changes, and though she does not know it, she will never be the same again.

He gasps, his lips against her ear, just as she cries out, and the heat and the darkness and Mello are all so close that she cannot tell them apart.

x

Note deux: B'aw, please excuse my hideousness at writing anything that even verges on smut. ALSO ALSO exciting news, to run parallel to this/the next chapter or so, there is going to be a MATT/HALLE one shot requested by Taoi Ryder :D It'll basically be like an alternate version of part of this story done as if Halle gets it on with Matt instead. Because, you know, none of us are really in Death note for the erudite philosophical debates and cunningly operated plans. We're in it for the shower scenes.


	7. Granola

Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note. Still. And good thing, too. Can you imagine? You guys would still be waiting for it to be updated. AMIRITE. Lyricslines is Tegan and Sara with 'Hell'

Note: I am a despicable person who cannot update stories properly even when the chapter only needs her to bloody well follow the manga and add some sex. I am useless, I know. So here is an update. Hopefully I will get some Passages up soon. Honestly i love this story quite a lot and really hope I don't leave it YET AGAIN. If you are still reading, thank you. And Happy New Year.

Chapter title has nothing to do with the chapter, it's just the only food that was mentioned. Bad language increases through the chapter. More vague smut towards the end. A note on the dialogue here: some of it follows actual scenes from the manga/anime. I don't have my copies with me. I'm using an internet version and paraphrasing some bits. I apologise for that. Usually I'm a stickler for canon, but I just modified some stuff to make it fit better. It's nothing major, literally just phrasing. Just wanted to apologise. Anyway...enjoy.

By the way, I don't think I've done justice to the HQ scene. I love that scene more than words can express. It might even be my favourite scene overall. Yellowbox doesn't count.

x

_no, i'm not ready for a big bad step in that direction..._

_...no, we're not ready for hell, hell no, for hell, hell no_

-

Halle does not remember falling asleep. In fact, she does not remember much of the last day at all, beyond smoky skin, the ice of blue eyes and the fire of tongues and teeth.

Mello, predictably, is not there when she wakes up. Nothing of him remains, nothing to indicate he was there except for a tear in her dressing gown and an unpleasant, jumpy feeling deep in her stomach.

A part of her brain is working. This part looks at the clock, notes the time, runs through the list of things she must do before leaving for work, the process of getting ready. This part wonders if Matt got back alright, and has decided on skipping breakfast and bringing a granola bar to headquarters. The rest of her brain thinks nothing, feels nothing, except the dirty stickiness of sweat and sex, and the overwhelming desire to crawl into a bath and not get out until the water has gone cold.

She gets up. Because after everything, after all the confusion and flurries and heat and uncertainty, the day is not waiting for her to collect herself. She cradles her head in her hand, sitting on the edge of her bed. There is a soft knock on the door.

"Halle?" Matt's voice is muffled behind the wood.

"Come in," she says, reaching for her dressing gown. She pulls it around herself, and notices the tear anew. Where Mello tore it off, she thinks, absently, and shifts the folds round until it is all but out of sight, reduced to a trick of the light.

The door opens, and light spills in. "I just wanted...well, I know you normally get up a little earlier than this, so I just wanted to make sure you were alright." The way he finishes his sentence makes it sound almost like a question.

"I'm fine," she says, a little curtly. She can feel Matt flinch, and rebukes herself silently. _He has done nothing_, she reminds herself. _If you are distressed by the fact that you had sexual intercourse with Mello, you have no one to blame but yourself._ "I'm fine," she repeats, more quietly, more gently, tempering her voice with every ounce of restraint she can muster. The rest of her brain is starting to wake up, and she is beginning to feel as if she wants to scream.

"What did Mello want last night?"

She opens her mouth to reply, and realises she has no lie prepared. She gets to her feet, still clutching her dressing gown around her, as if shielding her body from Matt will undo what has been done.

It doesn't work. She can feel each beat of her heart very keenly under her clenched fists, can feel the rush of each breath of air into and out of her lungs.

"Halle?"

"I don't know," she says, her brain rushing to fill the silence with something, anything, _any_ lie, anything in the world except the truth. "He never came."

"Oh. You must have been asleep when he was here then."

There is something curious in Matt's voice that makes her turn around to face him. Then, she catches her breath.

His lip is split, and there is a bruise blossoming underneath one of his eyes. He seems to be otherwise unharmed, but the evidence of an altercation is scrawled all over him, written into the angle of his shoulders, the flutter of his eyes as he drops his gaze to avoid her searching look, the shame on his face.

"What happened?" she asks, half breathless.

He shrugs. "Mello." He doesn't even bother lying to her.

"Oh."

"I met him outside. As soon as he saw me, he just..." he mimed throwing a punch. "I fought back," he added, and grinned a little. "Ow!" He winced, and brought a hand to his lip.

"Try not to smile," Halle advised him. "Or have an expression of any kind."

He smiled again. "Sonofabitch!"

She watched him, her brow creased. "Why did he hit you?"

Matt shrugged again. "Dunno. It's just what Mello does."

"Hit you?"

"Hit everyone." Matt scuffs his foot against the ground. "That's how Mello interacts with the world. I hack it, Near decodes it, Mello hits things until they give him what they want."

"That's a little..." She frowns again. "That doesn't sound very much like the way L did things."

"Oh, it is." Matt raises his head, and brings his eyes to meet Halle's. "Because Mello knows exactly what to hit to get the answer. And he'll keep hitting it and hitting it until it gives in."

Halle shudders. She listens to Matt's words, and remembers a tongue on her neck and rough, burnt hands around her breasts.

"I've got to shower," she says, excusing herself.

"Halle." Matt catches her on the way out of the room. "Look, I just wanted to say...thank you. So much. For everything. For looking after me, for feeding me, and...well, most of all, for Mello. Without you...without you he'd be dead. And then – then I dunno what I'd do. Without him..." He looks away, and Halle thinks he is finished, until he draws a breath, and says, "Mello's always been the reason for me. He's stronger, he's got more ideas, he's got definition, purpose – I follow him. That's what I do. Without him I would just come to a stop and never be able to keep going. So...thank you. For everything."

Halle stares at him with a mixture of heart-break and compassion. She lays a hand on his cheek. "Matt," she murmurs, pulling him into a hug. Awkwardly, he puts his arms around her, and it strikes her how much bigger than her he really is, despite his youth and gangliness.

They hug in silence. For some indefinable reason, this feels like goodbye.

Something wells up in her throat. "I have to shower," she says again,excusing herself. And forbids herself from thinking until she is under the steady, hot jets of water, secure and alone in her bathroom.

Then, she leans against the wall, and exhales.

_What the fuck had she been thinking?_

Mello was – no, is – the enemy. Mello killed her co-workers. Mello killed Soichiro Yagami. Mello robbed the Japanese taskforce of a Death Note, and cost the lives of countless Mafioso's. Mello beat up his best friend, the one who dragged him from the rubble of the base _he_ blew up, dragged him to somewhere he could get help, dragged him across the country bleeding and unconscious –

- _And Mello is shredded diamonds and a boy on the cusp of manhood, all intertwined insecurity and overconfidence, ice cold fire and skin like a map of tragedy. Mello is a half-destroyed wreck, a cascade of brilliance, blazing so brightly that he is undoubtedly going to burn himself up and tear himself to pieces. Mello is strong and Mello is weak and Mello is a terrible, terrible anger, the type you can't control, the type that curls up inside you and festers and waits for years – years of being second, of being the Not Quite Good Enough boy with the broken past and thorn-crusted soul. Mello is the enemy and Mello is the only one who can solve this thing, because Mello is the only one with any actual guts, the only brave one, the only strong one, the only wild one, the only –_

Halle draws a breath, long and shuddering. Water flecks her lips, and she closes her eyes as it runs over her face. She slept with Mello.

And she would do it again.

-

She barely registers what goes on for most of that day. Near issues instructions and she obeys. That is her duty now. She is not here to think, to calculate, to set up intricate ambushes or spend long nights on stakeouts because she just _knows_ that this is their guy. Her duty is to listen to this slight, half-invisible boy and obey him.

Some days, she resents it. Today, her mind is elsewhere.

It occurs to her, just after lunch, when she is reading an update from a file to Near, how very different he and Mello are. In her mind, they both flash up, next to each other. Everything vibrant, everything bright, is lacking in Near. He moves like a ghost, or the child of a ghost, translucent and white and quiet and unfaltering. Mello is all mistakes and all half-assed plans that end up in explosions and scars, all colour and emotion and wildness.

Near, she thinks, is like the faded shadow of Mello, of what he might have been if he had chosen another path. Between the two of them, they might make a whole. Each has what the other lacks. Between the two of them, they might be unstoppable. They might be terrifying.

Was this, she wonders, what L was like?

For the first time in her life, she wishes she had met him. She pictures him in her mind, from the descriptions she has garnered – a slender man, hunched and tired, a shock of black hair. Did he have Mello's fire? Did he have Near's calculative eyes?

Vaguely, distantly, she thinks she is beginning to understand. There is much, much more to the Kira case than Kira now. At the base of it, behind it all, like the wizard behind the curtain, is L. Since the moment he entered the case, his presence – his existence – has governed the actions of every single person involved.

This is not the Kira case. This is the L case.

And then Near is talking again. It is long, and convoluted, and Halle is struggling to follow it. Rester has come up behind her, and seems to be doing better than she is.

"...are you serious?!"

"Yes. I believe the second L is Kira."

This much, Halle can understand. She comes thudding back to earth, her eyes wide.

"What?"

"The second L is Kira. Whoever he is."

Halle stares. The second L? The man (she assumes) they've been working with all this time? The one leading the Japanese taskforce?

...the taskforce. Who saw Mello's face.

There is every chance that Kira has seen Mello's face.

She tries to ignore the way her heart has contracted at this realisation. Something seems to be making her head spin, and she fights for control. Near is talking again.

Rester is protesting. He is saying something about this being conjecture, about Near not being sure. And then Near turns around, and the look he gives him and the ice in his tone make it clear that this point is not open for negotiation.

Halle can feel her heart thudding in her chest. Possibly..quite possibly...after all this time, they have found their target.

And he is so close they can _touch_ him.

For a moment, a brief moment, she forgets about Mello. Her mind has focused itself, like sunlight through a magnifying glass, the way it has been trained to. The second L. Obviously, he was a member of the Japanese taskforce, or someone close to them. It is probable he knew L. That would mean that he –

The realisation hits Halle, and she feels sick.

It would mean that Kira and L had, in all probability, been working side by side on the Kira investigation when Kira took L's life.

The viper they have been looking for is sleeker and craftier than she had ever imagined.

There is a heavy banging on the door, and Near keys in the code to open it. Gevanni is standing there, looking frantic, his eyes wide.

"Near! Everyone! Switch over to satellite, you have to see this. Right now."

The screens change and the Vice President's image fills the screen. President, now, Halle reminds herself. His voice echoes out from the console.

"What's this?" Rester says from behind her. "A broadcast? Why didn't we –"

"Shh!" Near holds up a finger. He is watching the screen.

"And that is why we, the USA, have acknowledged Kira," says the Vice President. He looks old and weak and tired and afraid, and Halle can feel the floor underneath her crumbling away.

Everything they have built, everything they have been working for –

Everything in the world that stands against Kira has been cut away in a single breath.

They're being disbanded.

Kira has won.

-

After the dust has settled, and Rester has stopped loudly and obscenely decrying America, politicians and everything else vaguely attached to the broadcast they witnessed, Near speaks.

"This is not the end."

"You heard that bastard!" Rester points at the now dead screen. "We're illegal!"

Near inclined his head. "Nevertheless, we will perservere."

Halle stops listening. Her mind is filled to the brim with everything that has happened, with Kira, with their being disbanded, with America's acceptance of Kira, with Mello –

She settles on something and clings to it. Matt.

Matt is young and he is honest and he is alive. She can focus on that, for now. She can narrow in on that. Think of Matt, nothing else, think of Matt sitting in your apartment, fixing himself something to eat, watching some cable –

And then, Near's words catch her again. "...wouldn't you let them live?"

He is talking about the SPK deaths, she realises. He is talking about Mello.

"Mello is alone. He needs help from someone. We cannot get in contact with him, that much is clear...we must let him come to us."

She is astonished. Near...Near intends on sharing information with Mello. All of it, by the sounds of it. Why? Why now? Why only when -?

But she stops herself. The way Near's mind works is not for her to divine. Trying...trying to do that is like trying to catch smoke in your hands, to weave yourself a necklace out of the strands of the breeze.

"How do you know he's alive?" she manages, her voice kept level only by conscious effort. "His base exploded."

Near does not move. He simply says, "He's alive." He says it with such conviction, and as if it were so very obvious, that for a moment, a chilling moment, a thrill of fear turns Halle's blood cold. _He knows_, she thinks. _He knows he knows he knows he –_

"You will all have to wear bugging devices. In particular, Halle Lidner. The possibility of him contacting you is significantly higher than for Gevanni or Mr Rester."

Halle is startled. Guilt, she thinks, colours everything. She cannot shake from the back of her mind the feeling that Near _knows_.

"What? Why me?"

"You are female," he says, very simply. "In a confrontation, he will be able to overpower you more easily. He will also perceive you as weaker."

Maybe, Halle thinks, that should insult her. But she knows them both – Near and Mello – far, far too well by now.

"I'll do it," Gevanni says, adding his support to Rester's. Near's eyes fall on Halle.

She looks down, momentarily, fractionally, instinctively. She is sure it was enough for him to guess, and hates her body for betraying her mind.

"I'm in too," she says, quietly.

Her blood is pounding in her ears. This day...this day – she would give anything for it not to have happened. When she returns home, she is going to have to be wearing a wire. If Matt is there, Near will know. If Mello comes, Near will know. If she so much as lets slip one hint of what she has been involved in –

She is walking a very slender and very dangerous line – balancing on the edge of a knife, with all of oblivion gaping below her. There is no way she is not going to be found out. And when she is, when Near gains proof for what she is sure he already knows, there will be nowhere on earth she can hide.

Near is talking still. Talking and talking and talking – _does he never stop?!_ Halle swallows. She is feeling sick. Her heart is pumping faster than it should, and she offers a silent prayer to nothingness that she has long ago learnt to school her expressions, to keep herself firm, and static, and quiet, in the face of all adversity.

And still, for a moment, she wavers, and feels the incredible weight of everything pressing in around her, the sensation of things clawing at her skin. She feels a prickle run over her as she remembers Mello's fire, his hands all over her skin, his breath mixing with hers, the feel of his weight on top of her and his groans as they moved together. In front of her, Near is still crouched, still dictating how they will cope with these new changes of events.

In her mind, she is fucking Mello again, and try as she might she cannot drive the images away.

She feels cheap and dirty and low and scared and all she wants, in the entire world, is for all of this to be _over_.

-

The drive home is completed in silence. She does not turn on the radio. She does not even try to tune out her own thoughts. Her mind has shut off, and is working on automatic – changing gears, checking traffic lights, everything except confronting the reality of what awaits her at home.

When she reaches her apartment, she freezes.

There is a mark on the handle of the door. It is small, barely noticeable, but it is there.

It is blood. Not blood from a new wound, she realises, with relief, but from an old one, the kind mingled with pus and skin and plasma.

And it was not there this morning.

Her breath comes to a standstill.

_Mello is inside her apartment_.

He is there, right now, and she is wearing a wire with the sole purpose of trapping him in the moment he does something like this, something so foolish, so reckless, as to approach a member of Near's team.

As if he didn't cross that line long ago.

She enters her apartment, and as soon as she does, before she even reaches for the lights, she has her finger to her lips.

There is a gun pointed to her head and the low click of it being cocked. _Shit_. Would Near have heard that?

She turns her head, fractionally, no sudden movements, and repeats the motion of placing her finger to her mouth. Mello narrows his eyes mistrustfully. Shutting the door, she speaks clearly, for his benefit more than anyone else's.

"Near," she says, and Mello starts at the name. He looks around, just in case, before returning his gaze to her. He nudges the gun closer. "I'm going to remove the bugging device while I take a shower."

Mello's eyes widen, and then narrow. "Trying to trap me?!" he mouths. She shakes her head, fractionally.

She slips off the wire and lays it on the table. Mello follows her to the bathroom.

He watches her undress. He does not drop his eyes, or show any sign that this is inappropriate or unusual at all. His face does not change. He simply watches her, like stone.

The moment she is naked, she faces him. She is unashamed. He keeps the gun trained on her, and she wonders why, now, after everything, he still does not trust her.

"Where is Matt?" she asks.

"Out," Mello tells her, and there is a darkness in his eyes that makes her shudder.

"Where?" she says, and she is scared by the demanding tone she has allowed to creep into her voice. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," Mello says, with a snarl.

"When's he coming back?" she persists, folding her arms against her naked chest.

Mello meets her gaze. "He's not," he tells her.

There is nothing else to say. Like Matt said, when Mello hits something, he knows exactly where to hit, and does not stop until he has won.

Matt will not be coming back.

She lowers her head, momentarily, and closes her eyes. There is very little chance at all that she will ever see him again. Everything is spinning out of her control, and she detests it.

"You'd better hurry up," Mello says, and his voice is unpleasant. "Near will wonder what's taking so long."

A retort hangs on the end of her tongue, but in the midst of everything, she cannot even bring herself to utter it. She turns the shower on, and steps behind the curtain.

Then, she tells Mello everything.

-

The gun is hard against her back as the march up to the doors of the headquarters, stopping in plain view of the security cameras. Near will see them. Near will let them in.

The doors open, and Halle can swear she can feel the cold of the gun even through the coat and her clothes. There is a type of coldness that comes with things that kill, and it is the same coldness that lingers behind Mello's eyes, that clings to her lips after they kiss.

Mello's gun moves to her head. Halle is unafraid. After all, the worst he can do is kill her. And honestly, after today, the peace accompanying death is not entirely unappealing.

She hates herself for the thought. And still, she cannot muster up anything more than a vague trepidation. She put her trust in Mello, completely, too long ago. Now, it doesn't matter what he does. It's her fault. She has given him this power over her, this opportunity. Whatever Near might say about women and their strength, Halle knows her own capabilities. She is here because she was foolish and because she has fallen –

No. Stop it.

Because she has –

_No._

"Everyone lower your guns. Bloodshed is pointless."

Vaguely, she becomes aware that Gevanni and Rester are aiming behind at Mello. Obscenely, she feels her anger bristle towards them. They are protecting her, and yet – how stupid can they be? Mello is not the enemy. Not really.

The gun leaves her head. She does not move. Somehow, standing here, next to Mello, on _his_ side of the floor, seems much more right than standing beside Near.

It almost feels something like home.

She is starkly aware of the difference in the two now. Her comparisons from earlier seem to be understatements, now that the two of them are together, face to face. These old enemies, childhood rivals, this pair of light and dark, shadow and colour, emotion and reason, are encountering one another in almost the basest form.

Except, it isn't. Near would never resort to violence, and Mello is outmatched in numbers. Suddenly, rushing through her, she feels a burst of frustration. Everything is so tightly wrapped, so planned, so very, very _neat_ in Near's world – everything has been predicted and accounted for and everything is in its precious little box, and nothing can come out of place.

And there is never any point to guns, and there is never any reason for a fight, never any space for anything like a bar room brawl or a bomb or running or _life –_

What must it be like to be him? Living in this world that does not exist, surrounded by tokens of a misremembered childhood, games and toys that would have been replaced with puzzles and problems. What must it be like to think that way, to have your mind operate along tracks and trails, to have no space for spontaneity or _feeling_? What life was that? What was the point?

And what must it be like, it occurs to her, to be fighting against that? What must it be like to be in competition with someone for whom competition is a dry and unimportant diversion, someone for whom competition is irrelevant because he has never been less than perfect? And what do you do when all you have is your rage, and your raw power, and none of that counts for anything because the world you are in allows for reason, only reason, simply reason -

She suddenly understands everything Mello has been feeling his whole life.

There is a click and the gun is turned on Near.

"I'm not your tool!" Mello growls, and she can feel his anger emanating from him, bristling in the air.

The others have their guns on him in an instant, and before she realises what he has done, he has pushed her behind him.

It was almost unnoticeable. It was almost just him pushing past her. It almost didn't happen.

But it did.

He...protected her. Because he doesn't trust himself. Because unlike when he had his gun on Halle, this time, he isn't sure he's not going to shoot.

She turns on him, steps in the path of the bullet, her hand of his arm. He looks at her, incredulous.

"Mello...if you shoot Near, we will shoot you," she says, softly, so that the others will have to strain to hear. "Neither of you is any good dead."

He studies her face, and she can feel his eyes searching her, though she is not sure for what. She holds his gaze, determined, certain. _Don't_, she pleads with him silently. _Have some sense._

He lowers his gun.

"I just want the photograph," he says, gruffly. She stays facing him. She keeps her eyes locked on him. She is taking in every aspect of his face, every facet of his scars, every contour of his skin.

If he leaves today, if she never sees him again –

There is a flick from behind her, and Near is holding up the photograph. In it, Mello is fourteen. In it, L is alive and Mello is nothing more than a precocious, cruel little boy with haystack hair and electricity in his veins. He is not the scarred and bloodies man in front of her with darkness staining his soul. He is just a boy.

Just a kid.

Suddenly, as he looks at the photograph, she sees that kid behind his eyes. For a second – no, a split second, so fast she is not even sure she really saw it – he is young and he is alone and he is afraid. He is a boy who does not know why his face is hurting so much or how he ended up in this terrifyingly high tech building or what any of this is for. His eyes flicker to hers. _I want to go home_, she reads there, and her heart breaks, because she knows as well as anyone that Mello has no home to go to.

Nowhere to run, and all of the world and hell's demons on his heels.

-

She drives home alone, for the second time that day.

Shinigami. Mello said that shinigami...Death Gods...that they were the things behind the Death Notes.

And Near said that he believed they were real.

Halle shakes her head, trying to clear some space in her mind. She's never believed in ghosts. She's always thought psychics were bullshit. And now – this?

It was too much to swallow. Too much for one day.

Everything getting back to her apartment is a blur. The wire is gone, at least, and she is grateful that now she doesn't have to scramble around installing cameras in her house. Her privacy is the last thing she has managed to keep sacred, keep hidden away from Near. He is not going to claim that, not now.

She is no sooner in the door when someone has seized her, thrown her against the wall, and pressed their face close to hers.

The door clicks shut.

"He's been playing me this entire time," Mello says. His voice is low. It is a growl, a murmur, a heady blend of hatred and resentment and a pressing sense of futility. "This whole fucking time. The picture said 'dear Mello'. 'Dear' fucking 'Mello'. That little shit. He knew this was happening. Knew I would come to you. He's probably been feeding you information to give to you and we were both to fucking stupid to realise it. That little _shit_."

Halle does not answer. Mello is very close.

He presses on. "I asked you earlier, in the shower, whose side you were on. You gave me that bullshit generic sitting-on-the-fence crap. I don't give a fuck about that. Give me the truth, Halle. Tell me straight up, honestly, to my fucked up face, whose side you are on." He presses still closer, his lips less than an inch from hers, his breath hot on her cheek. One hand is curled up near her neck, and the other pushes the barrel of his gun into her ribs.

She still stays silent.

He jerks her forward and pushes her back against the wall. "Don't give me shit. I saw that look in your eye when you told me not to shoot Near. I saw your face when your pals had their guns on me. I saw you, Halle Lidner, when you came last night, when I was –"

"Alright," she says, quietly. Her words feel foreign, like there is no space for speaking any more. After Near, after today, words seem inadequate, and false, and tricksy and hard and awful. She wants to speak in actions, in guns and in fists and in things that were raw and feral and real.

"Alright what?"

"Alright, you win. I will admit it." She fixes him with a cold stare that says very clearly that she is not proud of what she is about to admit. "I am on your side. I have been on your side from the moment I met you. I work for Near and I work with Near but when you were brought to my doorstep bleeding and burnt and dying I risked _everything_ to get you treated in secret. If Near found out the extent of what I've done for you – that I've harboured you – if he knew that I've _fucked_ you – for God's sake, Mello. How can you not even _know_ that the moment you first came into my life the only side I can even comprehend as _existing_ is yours?"

There is a clatter as his gun is dropped to the floor. He throws her against another wall, rough, hard, violent, and when he kisses her there are entirely too many teeth in it, and she feels pain throb through her lower lip. He grabs at her, rips down her shirt, and she hears the buttons fly off, pinging against the lamp. It is hard and brutal and it is everything she wants right now – no, more than that, it is what she _needs_.

All the frustration from Near, from the fuckwit Vice President's announcement, from the cloying structure of her job, from the realisation that they've been duped by the second L, has been building up inside her, and inside him, and as he throws her down onto her bed, she knows that this is the best way – the only way – for them to end up.

Their lovemaking is hard and rough and Halle knows she will be left with bruises in the morning. She doesn't care. This, with Mello, has been as much a fight as it has been a fuck. This is what neither of them can express in front of Near, the violence that sings through them both, the craving for something emotional and instinctive and carnal.

"Fuck this day entirely," Mello gasps into her ear, just before he climaxes, and Halle is inclined to agree.


End file.
